MDIA 5004 Media Relations Term 2, 2024

ASSESSMENT ITEMS

Assessment 1 (A1): Letter to Editor OR Opinion Piece

Letter to the editor (200 words) + rationale (500-800 words) OR opinion piece (800 words) + rationale (500-800 words).

Write either a letter to the editor on a topic relevant to your media relations campaign, or write an  opinion/editorial  article  relevant  to  your  media  relations  campaign.  Demonstrate  an understanding of theoretical frameworks relevant to media and public relations. A1 and A2 involve writing materials for use in a A3 (Media Plan).

Assessment 2 (A2): Media Release

Media release (300 words) + rationale (500-800 words). Write a media release that might be part  of your  media  relations  campaign.  Demonstrate  an  understanding  of the  theoretical frameworks relevant to media and public relations.

Assessment 3 (A3): Media plan for Non-Profit Organisation (Group Task)

Develop a media relations campaign around an existing organisational activity (1,500 words). Develop and understand how to implement a media relations campaign working in a group. Demonstrate an understanding of the various theoretical frameworks relevant to media and public relations. A3 involves preparing a Media Plan for a nonprofit organisation that your group selected. As a group assessment, however, unlike A1+A2, for A3 you will work WITH the members of your group ON the shared assignment, and ALL group members will receive the SAME grade.

School of the Arts and Media (SAM) requires that you complete all assessment tasks to pass the course. Further details of the assessment tasks will be updated on Moodle and covered in detail during classes. If you do not submit all the assessments, you cannot pass the class, no matter what your grade is. If you encounter a problem when attempting to submit your assignments through Turnitin,please refer to the Turnitin support immediately for solutions Turnitin Support | UNSW Current Students.

LATE SUBMISSIONS

If you submit your assignment after the due date, a penalty of 5% per day (including Saturday, Sunday, and public holidays) is imposed for up to 5 days. After 5 days, late work will no longer be graded without Special Consideration. For example, if you submitted an assignment two days late and your mark was 72%, your final essay grade will be reduced by 10% and the assessment will receive a 62%. For more information on submission of late work, consult the SAM assessment protocols atPolicies & procedures | Arts, Design & Architecture - UNSW Sydney.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATION

In the case of illness or misadventure, you will need to apply for Special Consideration. For information on Special Consideration please visit Special Consideration | UNSW Current Students.

Students who are prevented from attending a substantial amount of a course (because of sickness, weather, political instability, etc.) may be advised to apply to “withdraw without penalty.” A withdrawal without penalty will only be approved in the most extreme and properly documented cases.

ACADEMIC HONESTY AND PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is using the words or ideas of others and presenting them as your own. Plagiarism takes  many  forms,  from  deliberate  cheating  to  accidental  copying  of  a  source  without acknowledgement. The UNSW plagiarism policy had five categories:

•   Copying: using the  same  or  very  similar  words  to  the  original  text  or  idea  without acknowledging the source or using quotation marks. This also applies to images, art and design projects, as well as speeches and presentations where someone presents another’s ideas or words without credit.

•   Inappropriate  paraphrasing:  Rewriting  sentences/paragraphs,  changing  only  a  few words or phrases while mostly retaining the original structure and information without acknowledging the original source is considered cheating/plagiarism. Cheating/plagiarism also applies to presentations where another’s ideas or words  are used without credit. Inappropriate paraphrasing also includes arranging quotes and paraphrases into a new whole, without proper referencing or insight from a student’s own analysis to bring the material together.

•   Collusion: working with others but passing off one’s work as individual work. Collusion includes sharing your own prior work with someone before the due date, or to allow them to plagiarise your content. Collusion also includes paying another person to do your work, stealing or acquiring another person’s academic work and copying it, offering to complete another person’s work, or seeking payment for completing someone else’s academic work.

•   Inappropriate  citation:  Citing   sources  that  you  did  not  read,  without  properly acknowledging the “secondary” source from which your knowledge was obtained is also academic dishonesty or cheating. Cite only the sources you actually have read, and not sources in other sources, and you will never get in trouble. Do not insert a bibliographic reference for a source that your source cited, as if you were citing that source yourself.

•   Duplication (“self-plagiarism”): submitting your own work, in whole or in part, where it has previously been prepared or submitted for another assessment or course at UNSW, another university, or a published source, is cheating. You may quote small parts of your own work, like any other source, as long as you cite the work properly.

Details of what plagiarism is can be found on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism | UNSW Current Students.

Paying for essay/writing services, or to see samples of similar work from third parties is cheating (as the use of such services constitutes plagiarism), and is not permissible. Further, selling copies of lecture notes — as you do not own the rights to this intellectual property — is also not permissible.

Breaching the Student Code with respect to academic integrity is serious and UNSW will take disciplinary action under the Student Code of Conduct.

The Academic Skills team (Academic Skills Support | UNSW Current Students)provides substantial educational materials, workshops, and tutorials to aid students including:

•   Help with correct referencing practices.

•   Help with paraphrasing, summarising, essay writing and time management assistance.

•   Help with appropriate use of and attribution for a range of materials including text, images, formulae, and concepts.

Students are also reminded that careful time management is an important part of studying. Poor time management is often the reason for attempted plagiarism. Be sure to allow sufficient time for research, writing, editing, and proper referencing.

GENEARAL NOTES

MDIA 5004 is based around writing. A1 (Letter to editor OR Opinion piece) and A2 (Media release) involve writing materials for use in A3 (Media Plan). Both A1 and A2 are individual assessments, while A3 is a group assessment.

You will need to select a real non-profit organisation for all three of the assessments. The top priority in selection of your organisations will be their social significance. Religious and political organisations are excluded.

Note: In the Week 1 tutorial, each group will select 3 organisations of interest, and your tutor will help select the final one for you to use, as the course develops.

More details will be provided during the lectures and in tutorials before the assignments are due, but you can get a head start on the assessments by thinking about possible non-profit organisations that you might be interested in learning about.

For A3 you will also target mainstream Australian media, so be sure to choose a non-profit organisation that has an interest in reaching Australian audiences via Australian media. For example: there are many groups on campus — you could select one of them. Or you could look at  local  community  organisations  around  where  you  live.  Or  select  a  larger  non-profit, Australian,  activist  organisation.  See  below  for  some  examples. Although  you  will  NOT actually be implementing the Media Plan, A3 is an opportunity to develop a realistic product that you might actually include in your portfolio or list on your CV.

The following are examples ONLY:

ACON https://www.acon.org.au/

Amnesty International Australia,https://www.amnesty.org.au/

Animal Australiahttps://animalsaustralia.org/

Anti-Slavery Australiahttps://antislavery.org.au/ Animal Liberationhttps://www.al.org.au/

Asylum Seeker Resource Centrehttps://asrc.org.au/

Australian Business & Community Networkhttps://abcn.com.au/ Doctors Without Bordershttps://msf.org.au/

Extinction Rebellion Australiahttps://ausrebellion.earth/

Greenpeace Australia Pacifichttps://www.greenpeace.org.au/ Immigration Advice and Rights Centrehttps://iarc.org.au/

Mahboba's Promisehttps://mahbobaspromise.org/

Minus 18https://www.minus18.org.au/   PETA Australiahttps://www.peta.org.au/

The Kids Cancer Projecthttps://www.thekidscancerproject.org.au/

The Redfern Foundationhttp://www.redfernfoundation.org.au/ Refugee Action Coalition https://refugeeaction.org.au/

RSPCAhttps://www.rspca.org.au/

Save the Childrenhttps://www.savethechildren.org.au/

St Canices Homeless Kitchenhttps://stcanicekitchen.org.au/ Street Industrieshttps://www.streetindustries.org.au/

Sydney Basin Koala Networkhttps://www.sydneybasinkoalanetwork.org.au/ United Workers Unionhttps://unitedworkers.org.au/

UNSWAFL Clubhttps://www.arc.unsw.edu.au/sport/sport-clubs/afl

UNSW Cricket Clubhttps://www.unswcricket.com.au/

UNSW Hockey Club https://www.revolutionise.com.au/unswhc UNSW Swimming Clubhttps://unswswimming.com.au/

UNSW Wests Water Polo Club https://www.revolutionise.com.au/unswwestswpc/

ASSESSMENT 1 (A1): Letter to Editor OR Opinion Piece (Individual assessment) Due: Sunday 23/06/2023 11:59 PM

Purpose: The purpose of this assessment is to help you practice pitching to the media with a specific “house style” in mind.

Skills: This assessment will help you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in career development:

•   Collecting,   analysing,    and   consolidating    information   from    appropriate academic and professional sources.

•   Understanding  and  applying  basic  disciplinary  knowledge  and  methods  in public relations writing.

•   Developing  clear,  concise,  informative,  and  persuasive  contents  to  achieve relevant goals in media relations.

Knowledge: This assessment will also help you become familiar with the following important content knowledge in media relations:

•   Newsworthiness and news values.

•   Messaging in persuasive communication.

•   Referencing.

Task: There are two parts of this assessment: Write (1) either a Letter to Editor (200 words) or an Opinion Piece (800 words) based on a news angle relevant to your chosen non-profit organisation and (2) a Rationale (500-800 words) that explains your writing choices following the UNSW Harvard style. Submit ONE document in Turnitin.

(1) Letter to Editor OR Opinion Piece

Write  EITHER  a  letter  to  editor  OR  an  opinion  piece  for  your  chosen  non-profit organisation. DO NOT put academic in-text references in this part.

If you go for letter to editor:

You must follow the format closely for formatting a proper business letter and writing a letter to the editor. Read several dozen samples before you write your letter.

The letter must argue the case around an issue that you have chosen to advocate in the media for your chosen non-profit organisation. Thus, you must write it in their “voice” and understand that you are writing it for them.

The letter must be addressed to the editor of a media outlet that publishes letters to the editor that will reach your nonprofit organisation’s target audience. Note: You cannot just say you’ve written a letter to the editor for any source, they actually have to publish letters to the editor, and you need to provide evidence of that with your own letter. You must name the editor (when possible) and the media outlet that you are writing for. You must research the media outlet to see how they have covered your issue and write a letter that touches on the existing framing and prior discussion and content.

If you go for opinion piece:

You will write an opinion essay (i.e., basically an informative and persuasive essay). The essay must examine an issue that is being promoted by your chosen non-profit organisation and target a newspaper or magazine (print or online mass media outlet) that will reach the target audience in the media plan for your organisation. You should tie the issue into something covered already in the media. Note: Social media is NOT appropriate for this assessment.

The opinion essay is written as an actual timely response to an issue from the leader of your

chosen organization. Thus, you must write it in their “voice.” Consider following the steps below to prepare either of them:

a.   Figure  out  which  news  media  outlet  “makes  sense”  for  your  organisation. Choose only ONE media outlet to target for your letter to editor/opinion piece.

b.   Check your chosen media outlet’s coverage (of your organisation AND of the issue   your    organisation   is    working   on/about/for/against),    that   is,    an environmental scan.

c.   Check the house style requirements of your chosen media outlet.

d.   Draft your submission.

NOTE: DO NOT actually email your chosen media outlet. Just be aware of the process and guidelines.

(2) Rationale

Describe your research process and why you made the decisions that you did in preparing and writing your letter to editor/opinion piece. Be specific and cite academic content (from this course only) as well as contents from your chosen media outlet to backup your choices. Example choices include:

a.   Why you picked the media outlet.

b.   The results of your environmental scan of coverage which led to that decision.  c.   The choices that led to your opinion/topic angel/framing (you must mention the

client in relation to their leadership on, or relevance to, the topic of your letter to editor/opinion piece in the letter to editor/opinion piece itself - it’s not needed in the rationale).

d.   The target audience of your message, who you are accessing via the media outlet. How communicating with them matches the goals/objectives/strategies/tactics  of your chosen organisation.

e.   Writing  choices,  including  language  choices  which  match   or  mirror  the preferred or “house style” suggested by other examples or actual advice from the media outlet that you chose to target.

f.   Writing  choices  which  emphasise  the  persuasive  techniques  (/strategies  of influence/etc.) discussed in the lectures and tutorials.

To reiterate, the only support you should use for this assignment should come from the class readings and texts, and the media outlet you target for A1 (e.g. the Sydney Morning Herald). Do NOT search  for random  support  on the  Internet to justify the decisions you make.

You do NOT need to spend anytime in your rationale telling the reader about the newspaper itself, or the issue, UNLESS that is part of an argument for the writing choices you made. The purpose of the rationale is NOT for you to research the issue and educate us about climate  change,  human  trafficking,  animal  mistreatment,  etc.  Your  rationale  ONLY describes the writing choices that you made and why, not a summary of the social issue or cause. That information goes in the letter to editor or opinion piece, only.

ASSESSMENT 2 (A2): Media Release (Individual assessment) Due: Sunday 14/07/2023 11:59 PM

Purpose: The purpose of this assessment is to help you practice writing media releases.

Skills: This assessment will help you practice the following skills building on what you have learned in the course so far and what you have achieved in A1 that are essential to your success in career development:

•   Collecting,   analysing,    and   consolidating    information   from    appropriate academic and professional sources.

•   Understanding  and  applying  basic  disciplinary  knowledge  and  methods  in public relations writing.

•   Developing clear and concise contents to write media releases.

Knowledge: This assessment will also help you become familiar with the following important content knowledge in media relations:

•   Newsworthiness and news values.

•   Messaging in persuasive communication.

•   Referencing.

Task: There are two parts of this assessment: Write (1) a Media Release (300 words) for your chosen non-profit organisation and (2) a Rationale (500-800 words) that explains your writing choices following the UNSW Harvard style.

(1) Media Release

Write a media release for your chosen non-profit organisation. DO NOT put academic in- text references in this part.

You will need to have a compelling angle and follow the format and style of a typical media  release. It must focus an organisationally relevant topic or campaign, but not something  that has already been featured by the organisation. So, yes, you will likely be making up  your media release subject, but it should be based on organisational facts and realistic issues.

For example, imagine your organisation is about protesting against animal cruelty in the horse racing industry; you might focus on a media release relevant to a “real” upcoming event (e.g. a protest) — assuming no current media release already exists that talks about such an event. If the organisation HAS media releases on the topic already, then you may write about  something  “similar,” but the details  should be  completely  original, while nonetheless relying on existing facts and information for context.

For all issues, you must research how the issue has been covered in the media in the past and work out how to make this particular issue and event "newsworthy".

For A2, unlike A1, multiple media outlets could or should be targeted. Note: Social media is NOT appropriate for this assessment.

NOTEVERY CAREFULLY: You are not a journalist. You are not writing a “news story” for readers. A media release is NOT A STORYfor the public. The “audience” for the media  release  is  the  journalist,  producer,  or  editor  that  you  want  to  follow  up  with  your organisation and their issue or event. So, your release must have a coherent news angle that will be interesting to a particular audience (e.g. the audience of a particular newspaper, show, etc.) but focus primarily on the details necessary to attract that interest.

(2) Rationale

As per A1. Explain the rationale behind your decisions in writing your media release. The rationale must include academic references to your class readings and texts only, as well as relevant examples of media that justify your choices.

Unlike A1, you don’t have to justify your choice of media outlet as multiple media outlets could or should be targeted.

NOTE: In your rationale, do not spend more than one short paragraph talking about your organisation. Your rationale is not an analysis of your organisation but of the writing choices that you have made. Why did you make specific word choices, why did you select particular language, how is this release targeting appropriate media, what makes your release newsworthy, etc.

ASSESSMENT 3 (A3): Media Plan (Group assessment) Due: Sunday 04/08/2023 11:59 PM

Purpose: The purpose of this assessment is to help you practice media planning.

Skills: This assessment will help you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in career development:

•   Collecting,   analysing,    and   consolidating    information   from    appropriate academic and professional sources.

•   Understanding the planning and implementation of media relations plans.

•   Formulating strategies with actionable insights for building relationships with media producers.

•   Working collaboratively in a team and developing leadership.

Knowledge: This assessment will also help you become familiar with the following important content knowledge in media relations:

•   Media relations campaign design

•   Evaluation of public relations outcomes

Task: Write a media relations plan (1500 words) for your chosen non-profit organisation. The media relations plan should be framed around an organisational issue or event of interest to a defined public and the mainstream media (not social media), whose support is of central importance to your organisation. For example, framing your media relations campaign around an existing event that your organisation is already planning is fine.

The Media Relations Plan must be presented in a professional manner with headings, client logo and clear, succinct writing.

NOTE: Your aim is to build media relations, NOT to try running a campaign or create an event. Essentially you will be presenting the steps that would go into an MBO (Management by Objective, see more details in the next page) campaign designed around building relationships with local and national media.

You can use an existing event or realistic event of relevance to the organisation as your starting point, but your focus is not on how to execute the event—this is not event planning or campaign planning activity, it is a “media relations campaign". Focus instead on the media, their interests, how the event or issue relates to the news outlets' interests, and how to connect with them.